Kazuya Kagami (
Appearance
Kazuya appears as a young boy with short brown hair, brown eyes and light skin. Though initially very plain, Kazuya's body has become more muscular and defined after retraining.
Kazuya's usual attire is his school uniform, consisting of a white button shirt with a chest pocket, pants and belt and loafer shoes. Outside of school he usually wears t-shits of various designs, striped shorts and running shoes.
When gender-swapped in the Dream World he goes by the name Kazumi Kagami (加賀見 かずみ, Kagami Kazumi) with her sister referring to her as Micchan (みつちやん, Micchan). as Kazumi she retains most of the same features as her original self. She has slightly longer hair and small breasts. She wears the female version of their school uniform.
Personality
Kazuya is a seemingly average teenage boy without many noticeable traits that stand out from him at first glance, coming off as a pretty normal and unremarkable individual. He is shown to be kindhearted and mostly friendly with people, but he's not as predisposed to deal with matters or people that annoy him, with Kiriha herself being a good example of this, as he mostly found her to be a nuisance upon first meeting due to the tsukumogami forcefully making him her servant. However, he does have a deep sense of responsability and guilt, doing everything in his power to help others when he believes it is his responsibility or his fault. In particular, he often mourns over his status as a Taboo Child, feeling responsible for the amasogi that are born around him and feeling greatly distressed upon seeing someone suffer from a severe Curse Backlash. He's quite brave, often stepping up and selflessly throwing himself into the fray to accomplish his mission as Kamioka's exorcist, as well as frequently prioritizing the safety of the host's and the others above everything else. Also, even though he was initially mostly annoyed by Kiriha's abusive behavior, he came to truly appreciate her immensely, seeing her as someone very dear to him and a very important partner. Because of this, Kazuya developed a great respect towards tsugumomo, thinking of them as partners who should be treated as equals, and strongly dislikes anyone that mistreats them or sees them as mere tools.
Surprisingly, Kazuya is actually quite perverted and lustful, as it would be expected from a teenager of his age. However, he's almost constantly making a strong effort to supress his desires and don't act on his lust, which he's usually quite successful of pulling off to the point of earning the admiration of his peers. His endurance is nearly inhuman, as he's subjected (and tempted) on a daily basis by his partner tsugumomo to all kinds of perverted situations, as well as being frequently lured by other females of his entourage like Kokuyou and Sunao Sumeragi. His self-control is so large it borders with being unhealthy, with even Kanaka Kagami encouraging him to have sex with Kiriha in order to satiate his repressed thoughts. As tempted as he is, Kazuya chooses not to do it, claiming that he truly enjoys the way things are, and if he were to enter into a sexual relationship with someone like Kiriha, the dyanamic of their relationship would abruptly change, preferring to hold back his desires instead. Despite this, Kazuya is often oblivious of any romantic feelings other girls might feel towards him, mostly when they're not open about it like Chisato Chikaishi or Sunao Sumeragi. While he's usually not the dense type, he comes off as quite ingenuous with such girls that opt for a more indirect approach in their social behavior.
Over the series, Kazuya comes to hold a very strong sentimental value for those he met upon becoming an exorcist, like Kukuri, Kokuyou and Kiriha. He becomes exceedingly concerned for their well-being to the point of being thrown into a great rage if he feels they are endangered. When Mayoiga attempted to assassinate Kukuri, Kazuya's anger during his fight against Kyouka was such that he forced Kiriha to activate Ascension against her will and almost murdered the opposing tsukumogami in cold-blood, stopping just short at the last second thanks to Kiriha's influence.
Following his re-encounter with his mother Kanaka Kagami during the Mayoiga Revolt, as well as the restoration of his blocked memories, Kazuya has suffered major changes in his personality as a consequence of tragically losing both Kiriha and Kukuri during the incident. While initially he was briefly thrown into despair and these traumatic events continue to hunt him to this day, motivated over refusing to accept such events from repeating, Kazuya found determination and has vowed to destroy the amasogi he created by defeating his mother. Following this newfound motivation, Kazuya changed into a far more proactive and determined person. He maintains a serene and noble disposition, but doesn't allow anyone to step on his beliefs and will fearlessly confront anyone who behaves in a way he dissaproves. He currently carries Kiriha's destroyed remainings alongside him at all times, and his usually calmed expression is quickly replaced by a serious and rage-driven one if anyone other than him were to touch them without his permission. Even after these events, Kazuya above all still remains an all-around kind and benevolent person, with more cynical individuals like Kyouka still finding him soft-hearted, but he does not hesitate to do what he must in order to accomplish the objective he has set his eyes on.
History
Kazuya is born as a Taboo Child.
Kazuya is the child of Kazuaki and Kanaka Kagami, as well as the younger brother of Kasumi Kagami.
When Kanaka was pregnant with Kazuya she, along with tsugumomo partner Kiriha, went out on a mission in the middle of the mountains to hunt Frozen Stock. Kiriha tried to convince Kanaka to rest due to her pregnancy, but Kanaka insisted that she was fine, as she hadn't faced difficulty when she was pregnant with Kasumi. However, during the mission Kanaka was abruptly assaulted by a mysterious black fog, which vanished quickly after uttering a few words. They asked Kukuri for her advice over the strange aberration, but it didn't appear to leave any lasting consequence on Kanaka. This changed upon Kazuya's birth, when he immediately showed signs of strong spiritual presence and attracted curse to himself, signify him as a Taboo Child. Kukuri has Kanaka transfer ownership of Kiriha to Kazuya in order to suppress his spiritual power, stabilizing the curse in the process.
Kazuya makes an amasogi to protect himself.
Four years later, Kanaka was already considering the idea of making one of her children her successor as Kamioka's exorcist, and a 6-year old Kasumi volunteered for it, much to everyone's surprise. Following this decision, Kazuya's elder sister underwent their mother's exorcist training, as she was trying to spare Kazuya from any form of danger. One day while having Kasumi train by killing several small aberrations, a slighty more powerful one escaped Kasumi's grasp and went after Kazuya. Before anyone could react to save Kazuya, he saved himself by instantly turning several rocks into an amasogi easily killing the aberration, which made Kanaka become aware of Kazuya's high potential and prompting her to have Kazuya trained as well.
Kazuya and Kasumi would be trained by their mother for the following three years, with the latter usually clashing with her mother due to her carefree nature. Kazuya and Kasumi would often bath together where Kasumi would fondle Kazuya and teach him to to the same to her under the guise of it "pleasing women", which the then innocent Kazuya was mostly unaware of what he was being taught. He would attempt to do the same to Kukuri, who tried teach him only to do it to someone important to him. Kazuya, seeing no ulterior meaning to her words, told Kukuri she was important to him and continued anyway while the meek goddess was unable of keeping him under control. Kazuya later does the same to Kiriha, explaining the past events to her. Kiriha tells Kazuya to do it only to a lover, to which Kazuya stated was Kiriha and assaulted her as well. One day while walking with his childhood friend, Chisato Chikaishi, he randomly said that he liked her not realizing the ulterior meaning.
One day, Kiriha spoke with Kukuri, Kazuya and Kasumi about Kanaka's depression and her exorcist suspension for ignoring warnings. Kiriha stated the simplest solution would be to have her face an opponent strong enough to threaten her, indirectly referring to Kukuri herself, but the deity declined stating that gods are not allowed to use their full power unless their lives or lands were at stake. Kazuya goes to his mother to cheer her up, telling Kakana that he will one day become strong enough for them to fight on even ground. Kiriha, Kukuri and Kasumi listened to their conversation outside the room, with the later two having been brought to tears by Kazuya's words.
Kazuya created Azami in an effort to reach his mother's level.
Kazuya would eventually surpassed his sister in training and began training with their mother instead, but thinking that he would never be able to catch up to Kanaka at his current pace, he secretly began exploring different routes to become stronger. Using his unique abilities to create amasogi, he attempted to create a tsugumomo. In secret, Kazuya took a black obi in their storage shed and began mysterious power and curse into it without any desire. After a period of several months, the tsugumomo was born and Kazuya gave her the nickname Azami, wanting to decide on a true name later. Kazuya would train with Azami in secret, turing objects into amasogi ordered to kill him and defeating them with Azami. Kazuya would typically have Azami hide in the storage shed, where she wouldn't be noticed by her family. However, being firmly attached with her creator and owner, a discontented Azami would one day sneak in Kazuya's bed during the night to sleep with him in his futon along with Kasumi. When he noticed her upon waking up he quickly hid her away before Kasumi could notice. Later that day, Azami expressed her desire to spend more time with Kazuya, prompting Kazuya to move into his own room, much to the distress of his sister. At some point in time, Kazuya found his mother and Kiriha participating in "skinship" with each other which Kiriha attempted to explain as bonding their sprits together. This would inspire Kazuya would do the same with Azami in order to deepen their bond. As a result, upsetting his sister even further, Kazuya stopped bathing with Kasumi in order to bath with Azami in secret, where Kazuya applied his previously learned knowledge from Kasumi.
One day, while searching for material to turn into training amasogi, he found an old black dress that belonged to Kanaka during her childhood. In order to use it for his and Azami's secret training, he tried to turn it into an amasogi to kill him like always, but for some reason failed to do so. Azami then inspected the garment and became enveloped in a black gas, getting possessed by the amasogi and some mysterious prescene within the dress. Following the desire of the amasogi created by Kazuya, she was overcome with the desire to kill him and attacked Kazuya. He promtly fled home where he found Kiriha, as Azami burst through the front door. Kiriha was able to save herself and Kazuya from the attacks until meeting Kanaka outside. Kazuya pleaded with her mother not to hurt Azami, which she agreed. Kanaka easily avoids Azami's attacks and binds her with "Obi Cords". Kiriha has Kazuya go report the situation to Kukuri and Kazuya leaves the scene.
While heading to Kukuri's shrine, Kazuya is saved by Kiriha from an attack by Kanaka using Azami. Kiriha tells Kazuya that Kanaka has been possessed by Azami, and that the Possession cannot be broken. Since she was possessed by an amasogi created by Kazuya, he has to be the one to put it down in order to avoid Curse Backlash, telling to to use her to pierce his mother's heart. Kazuya begs for an alternate solution but Kiriha binds himself to Kazuya and has him pierce Kanaka's chest using a spiral weave. As Kazuya saw his mother lay in the river, he began to blame himself, cursing his own existence, resulting in a large gathering of curse as amasogi formed around them. Kiriha attached herself to Kazuya to destroy to Amasogi and knocked Kazuya out. Kiriha bound the obi and placed Kanaka's body on the land, covering it up. Kiriha carried Kazuya to the shrine and explained the situation to Kukuri, who explained that they would seal Kazuya's memories of the incident, which would require him to forget every memory related to his mother and Kiriha as well. Kukuri explained that being forgotten would be akin to death for a tsugumomo, but Kiriha accepted anyway. Before sealing his memories, she had her return to obi form and laid her next to him, so that if the seal blocking his memories were to weaken at some point, they could be reunited. Kazuya's memories were sealed and their family moved into a new home as a precaution to prevent memories from resurfacing.
Abilities
Natural Abilities
Expert Combatant: Having been trained by his mother to be her successor as an exorcist and fight on par with her, Kazuya possesses extreme talent in combat. While he lost this skill after getting his memories sealed, Kazuya would retrain after reuniting with Kiriha, learning new skills along the way while also recalling previous abilities used by both him and his mother. After regaining his memories, Kazuya appears to be at the level if not greater of that before his memories were sealed. As an exorcist Kazuya primarily fights together with a tsugumomo, being the most experienced in using obi tsugumomo. Even without a tsugumomo partner, Kazuya also possesses a great skill unarmed combat, capable of easily dispatching multiple armed exorcists by himself.
Curse Manipulation: Being born as a Taboo Child, curse naturally gravitated towards Kazuya. As a child, Kazuya quickly learned how to manipulate the curse, allowing him to freely create Amasogi at will. Given enough time and effort, Kazuya was also capable of creating a tsugumomo within a much shorter time frame of one occurring naturally. After having his memories were sealed, Kazuya still attracted curse towards him and without anything to keep it in check amasogi are more likely to appear around him. Kazuya has yet to reattempt to use this ability after regaining his memories, as he's hesitant to do so since he believes it is the cause of the incident with his mother.
Heavy Touch: With his ability to manipulate curse, came the Heavy Touch, suggested by Ouna. This ability allows Kazuya to "fill" someone, human or tsugumomo, with spiritual energy. Kazuya is hesitant to use this because it needs some level of sexual intercourse, but he has demonstrated he will use it if the need arrives and has used the Heavy Touch a few times. Kazuya has used the Heavy Touch to "hide" the Ascension's weakness, with Sunao, and to power his tsugumomo, with Kyouka.
Tsugumomo
Obi Tsugumomo
The tsugumomo Kazuya is most familiar with are the obi, with Kiriha being passed down to him from his mother, and Azami, a tsugumomo he created himself. Of the two, Kazuya is more experienced using Kiriha. Azami was only used for a short time by Kazuya when he was a child, during which Kazuya never gave Azami a true name and would later forget ever occurred as a direct consequence of having his memories sealed. Throughout his training and battles, Kazuya has learned and developed a variety of weave techniques for various situations.
Obi Jab (
- Double Jab (ふたつき, Futatsuki): Two obi jabs at once.
Obi Throw (帯落とし, Obi Otoshi): The obi grabs the target and throws them.
Obi Bind (おびじめ, Obijime): The obi wraps around the target in an attempt to bind or grab them.
Spiral Weave (
- Eight Fold Blade (
ハ重刃 , Yaeba): The Spiral Weave with eight spirals layered on top of one another, increasing its strength. It is strong enough to destroy Kukuri's Frozen Water Bulwark. He was only able to use it once during Kukuri's test, as he became incapable of using all eight layers of the obi following the event. - Eight Fold Sakura (
ハ重桜 , Yaezakura): At technique developed by Kazuya to counter his shadow-self's Spiral Weave. The spiral forms a more round shape with the point in the centre before pushing outward. He could only use it in the Dream World where he could make use of Kiriha's full potential. - Eight Fold Strike (
ハ爪 , Hatsu-sō): After learning to use all eight obi simultaneously from fighting his shadow, Kazuya is able launch eight simultaneous smaller spiral weaves at the target. He could only use it in the Dream World where he could make use of Kiriha's full potential.
Shield Weave (たてつづり, Tate tsudzur): The weave forms a cross-stitched square panel, which can be used to block attacks.
- Two Fold (
二重かずら , Futa ekazura): A stronger version of the shield weave using two layers. - Watershed (
水分り , Mikumari): The shield weave bends inwards creating an edge. The form can be used to slice through large attacks or cause smaller attacks to rear off to the side. It can even divert sword strikes. - Soundproof (おとなし, Otonashi): A technique developed by Kazuya to counter Kyouka. The shield weave takes the form of an anechoic chamber, neutralizing all sound based attacks in its direction.
Muscle Enhancing Weave (
- Coiling Snake (
縒蛇 , Yori Kagashi): Using the muscle weave on their arms, the Kazuya hits the target with his hand sideways. Quickly, the weave then unwinds the hand upwards, sending a great amount of force through their target. - Leg Enhancement (たたらむすび, Tatara Musubi): Kazuya applies the weave technique to his legs, allowing him to at greats speeds and increasing his leg strength.
- Quake Leg (
震脚 , Shinki Yaku): Kazuya hits the terrain beneath them using their weaved legs to create a shockwave.
- Quake Leg (
- Hand Blade (てがたな, Tegatana): Kazuya creates two small blades on the front of his arms over his hands.
- Hundred Blossoms (
百華 , Hiyatsuka):Kazuya punches rapidly in great succession while using his arm weave. He can also possible to use this technique with the Double Handed Weave.
Obi Bundle (からみだま, Karamidama): A technique developed by Kazuya and Kiriha to combat Sunao Sumeragi. Kazuya keeps the obi wrapped in a loose bundle, allowing him to quickly change its form quickly without committing to a particular form or giving away their attack. Honoka noted that the technique had the advantage of being impossible to read, but it is too slow to perform and, thus, unsuited for exploiting openings.
Obi Wheels (おびぐゐま, Obi Guwima): Kazuya uses three obi to form wheels, allowing him and his partner to travel faster. The forms may vary such as two wheels in the form suspending the user, a cart or a single wheel the user grabs on to.
Drum Weave (
Hammer Weave (げんのうつづり, Gennō Tsudzuri): The obi weaves to form the shape of a hammer, which can be used to cause large amounts of damage.
Crossbow Weave (ゆみつづり, Yumi Tsudzuri): A technique developed by Kazuya to fight Sunao. The weave takes the form of a large crossbow, allowing the him to launch objects. This leaves him vulnerable as the crossbow takes time to reload.
Doll Weave (かたつづり, Kata Tsudzuri): A technique developed by Kazuya to fight Sunao. The weave forms the shape of a person which can be used to distract the target or act as a decoy. Kazuya is also able to launch various attacks from the doll such as jabs and hammer weaves from the doll. The doll can also be used to clash with larger enemies.
Double Handed Weave (もろてつづり, Morote Tsudzuri): A technique developed by Kazuya to fight Sunao. The weave forms to flat, large hands. It can be used both offensively or defensively. This form allows for easy transition into the Watershed form as well.
- Obi Straight Punch (おびせいけん, Obi Seiken): The weave forms a large fist which can be used to punch. This technique was developed by Kazuya to fight his shadow which simultaneously countered it with his own the first time they used it.
- Double Handed Throw (もろてなげ, Morote Nage): Kazuya grabs the target with the weaved hands and throws them with great force.
- Hundred Blossoms (
百華 , Hiyatsuka): Using their weaved arms, Kazuya punches their target rapidly. It is also possible to use this technique with the Muscle Enhancing Weave.
Spear Weave (やりつづり, Yari Tsudzuri): Similar to the spiral weave, the weave rolls up forming a cone shape. This weave is much thinner and is does not unwind like the spiral weave but is meant to simply pierce the target.
- Three Claw (
三爪 , San-sō): Kazuya creates three spear weaves to launch at the target.
Fan Weave (さしはつづり, Sashiwa tsudzuri): The weaves forms the shape of a gunbai which can be used to hit the target or create burst of wind.
Ascension (かみがかり, Kami-gakari): Kazuya's bond with Kiriha allowed him to master the ability of Ascension, a high-level exorcist skill only obtainable by the few strongest of exorcists. While using Ascension, Kazuya gains greatly increased physical capabilities for a short time. If Kazuya uses up his energy it will Ascension to end and he will be left unable to move for a day. Kazuya is able to and has forcibly activated Ascension by calling Kiriha's true name.
Domination (人憑, Hito-tsuki):
Flute Tsugumomo
Kazuya's current partner while owning eighteen other tsugumomo at the same time, the flute Kyouka. Though Kyouka has been helping Kazuya train, Kazuya is still very inexperienced using the flute tsugumomo. But, in his fight against Madarai, Kazuya and Kyouka have demonstrated to have progressed well together.
